LONG BLOG

I bought Rayman Origins on Tuesday, and I can confirm that it is a wonderful game. Obviously, the artwork and soundtrack are fantastic, and are definitely two of the game's strongest qualities. My favorite part of the game is it's humor. I love to see the return of crazy enemy designs and platforming elements like in the first game. Using jumping beans or pieces of food stuck to forks as platforms brings me back to the original game, where you would jump around on musical instruments, art supplies and other strange stuff. The character animations also always make me smile. Rayman and his friends are always just so freaking happy, grinning at you upon completion of a level or giving you a hilarious victory dance. If this game doesn't make you crack a smile, I don't know what will.

I only have a few complaints about the game so far, although they don't really affect the gaming experience too much. For one, I feel it's relying too heavily on the mechanics laid down by New Super Mario Bros. Not that they were bad or anything, I just kind of wish they would've tried to think of different ways to do a modern day multiplayer platformer, without using bubbles to resurrect dead players. They even have the same basic character selections: two different characters (Rayman and Globox; Mario and Luigi) and two very similar characters (Differently clothed Teensies; multicolored Toads). My only other complaint is that the unlockable characters are kind of pointless. Why would we need so many different Teensies to choose from?

Actually, I do have one more complaint. There really needs to be a button to have Rayman make a silly face, stick his tongue out and go "Blahlalala!" like in the first game. I miss that.

Anyway, if you've only heard of Rayman because of those annoying Rabbid games, then you owe it to yourself to play this game and see what Rayman is really all about. And if you were a fan of Rayman from the beginning, then you should already be getting this game anyway!